


Bury Me In Bloodstains and Bruises

by ThinkoftheWindandSun



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Afterspark, Blood and Violence, minor medical moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23504113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThinkoftheWindandSun/pseuds/ThinkoftheWindandSun
Summary: Getaway's not ready for the Afterspark. He'd prefer to say that the Afterspark isn't ready for him, but it really is the other way around.Being Spec-Ops doesn't mean much when you're up against a dead man.
Kudos: 14





	Bury Me In Bloodstains and Bruises

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own the transformers franchise, or any of its many iterations.

Getaway had been in the Afterspark for all of four orns—well, if his internal chronometre wasn’t entirely fragged up from the whole being dead thing—before he came across another spark.

Somehow, he felt he should have known it would be Ambulon.

They never met when they were alive. He had joined the Lost Light just in time to watch his greyed-out frame being hauled to the morgue. Internals spilling everywhere for the world to see. Ratchet holding what looked like a mangled body-half turned blaster. He had stayed back in the shadows and watched.

It was probably the most honest first meeting he had ever had. There was no lying when you were laying dead, internals exposed.

Anyway. Getaway didn’t actually know Ambulon. He knew a corpse. A frame shoved into storage but never forgotten. Made in to a weapon twice over, and memorable for it.  


“I’m dead then,” said Getaway, when he saw Ambulon. Intact in a way he had never known in life.

“Yes,” said Ambulon. He smiled, though Getaway didn’t see any feeling behind it. “It’s funny.”

“Funny?” Getaway asked.

“I heard you were one of the handsomest Autobots. But, then, I should have expected them to be soft-opticed over someone who looks like they fell in the same paint vat as Thunderclash,” said Ambulon.

Getaway looked down at himself. He shuttered his optics. Once. Twice. Tried to come up with the words to say that he wasn’t trying to look like Thunderclash. Maybe Thunderclash was trying to look like him? Huh? But the words wouldn’t come.

He settled for saying, “Well, it’s better than the mess you’ve got going on.”

That earned him a dry laugh. Which was so startling that he didn’t see the kick coming until the pede impacted his faceplate.

He hit the ground hard. Backplates denting in from the force, faceplate throbbing in a way that suggested misalignment. He spluttered, energon bubbling down through his specialized intake vents. Turning onto his side, he coughed to clear his vents.

Then he staggered to his pede, turned to the watching Ambulon, and lunged.

It wasn’t the carefully planned fight with volatile metals that he had against Rodimus. It was just two mechs in the Afterspark going at it with the only weapons they had. Their frames. And whatever modifications they had made with violent intent.

Which meant that Getaway felt entirely justified in transforming out his not-strictly-legal frame modifications.

A panel on his right forearm folded open, and out flipped a jagged knife. Things rearranged themselves so that the knife rested blade outwards against the side of his forearm.  
From his heel came a guided rocket. Tiny enough to fit between the narrow components down there. But carrying a powerful punch that could take off most mech’s plating in one shot.

He raised his optical ridges at Ambulon. Daring him to respond. The movement pulled his his injured face plate and nearly made him regret goading him on.  
When Ambulon transformed out his outer thighs to reveal a dual pair of pistols that he took in servo. Well. Getaway wished that he had the necessary facial features to smile. Because this was looking like his favourite kind of fight.

A nasty one.

It was inevitable that he threw himself forward, knife first.

The knife scraped along Ambulon’s shoulder, scoring a deep groove into the metal. But Ambulon was ready. In the same moment the knife made contact he swung around and up with the same leg as before—as evidenced by the energon splattered on the pede. His knee caught him in the gut and sent him reeling back.

He faked a fall backwards. Like his pedes had been properly knocked out from under him.

They weren’t.

Instead he kicked his weaponized heel up higher than the other and fired off a shot. Assured that it would hit even without manual aim. That was the point of the targeting system. To track spark signatures so that it would always hit its mark.

Skids had been so jealous when he found out he had it. So jealous he had requisitioned one for himself. Though, Getaway hadn’t bothered to clue him in to its presence when they reunited after the memory wipe.

A fist closed around his ankle before he could finish his really, truly skilled tumble, and he knew, suddenly, that the fight was really going to get started.

“Uh,” said Getaway.

Ambulon hauled him up and over his shoulder to slam him into the ground on his other side, face first. Getaway was just lucky he didn’t have a mouth, so he didn’t have to deal with tasting the ground. Instead his faceplate dented inwards. Agonizingly crushing.

He rolled over, leading with his knife again. And managed to catch a glimpse of smoking plating over Ambulon’s abdomen before his knife lodged in the gaps in the other mech’s servo. Then his dented faceplate was met by the other palm—and he really, really needed to keep his face away from him.

Staggering back, optics overheating from the pain, he lashed out blindly. His knife scraped across solid plating. Sparks flew. A knee caught him in the sensitive underarm. He twisted his arm and sent his knife digging. The jagged edges snagged, held fast, then split metal apart. It hooked on something inside.

With a triumphant gasp he pulled him arm back hard.

There was—Getaway had heard a lot of horrible noises since onlining. That was kind of the standard for an MTO. But still, he couldn’t suppress his wince at the sound of shearing metal and spluttering energon. Tearing out internal organs wasn’t part of the plan.

A wince that cost him as something unbearable hot tore through his throat cabling. He went down choking on his own energon.

But he didn’t offline.

Alarms blared in his processor. His HUD fritzed, sending him glitches and error codes he barely paid any mind to. The blurred vision was new, but manageable.  
Slowly, hardly aware of what he was doing, he shoved himself up to his feet. Staring at the frame splayed out in the dirt across from him. He absently dismissed the error messaged.

He grimaced and shook his arm. The fuel pump impaled on his knife jiggled free. It hit the ground with a horrible squelch. A glance down at his frame proved that he was soaked in energon. Just like the frame across from him.

Getaway prodded experimentally at the hole in his throat cabling. The one that should have made it impossible for him to still be standing. Because it had gone straight through one of the main lines. He should have bled out already.

His digits came away soaked. Yep. Definitely would have bled out by now. Instead he was just ruining his paint job. Which, despite some mech’s opinions, was quite pleasing, actually.

“I should really be dead from this,” said Getaway thoughtfully.

“You can’t die in the Afterspark, that would defeat the point,” said Ambulon.

Not dead either then.

That was. New.

He hauled himself up to his pedes, heedless of the way energon gushed from the place where his fuel pump should have been. If anything, he looked amused.

“Now. Are we going to actually fight? Or are you still warming up?” Ambulon asked.

That startled a genuine laugh out of Getaway.

“I’m done,” he said—gurgled, really, around the energon that was still bubbling up at an alarming rate.

Ambulon watched him a moment longer. Suspicious, as all good mechs should be around someone openly Spec-Ops. He was looking more and more like a decent Decepticon, and a pretty quality Autobot.

Getaway hated it.

Then Ambulon huffed and tucked away his pistols. He said, “Disappointing. I was sure you would be more fun.”

“That was fun for you?” Getaway asked.

“It wasn’t for you?” Ambulon asked.

He looked away first. Because it was. And somehow, he didn’t think that Ambulon would meet that kind of lie with anything but more brute force. He really, really wasn’t up to another fight.

Not right this second anyway. Give him a couple of minutes he might change his mind.

Apparently satisfied—disappointed? Since when were his enemies disappointed with the fights, he gave them? —Ambulon sat back down in the dirt and pulled a torch from his subspace. Impressive. Getaway didn’t think anyone could access subspace after losing that much energon.

While Getaway watched, Ambulon began prodding at his wounds and welding bits of plating together. Not the prettiest patch job, but definitely efficient.

It was almost soothing to watch.

“MTO?” Getaway asked.

Ambulon finished welding the jagged tear across his abdomen shut. Then he pointed the welder at Getaway’s face. It would have been terrifying, except that he was pretty sure it wasn’t a threat.

“How’d you guess,” said Ambulon.

“Ratchet was a big deal, no doubt, but he didn’t have the first clue about fixing up broken down MTOs. No Forged or Cold Constructed does,” said Getaway.

“Well, his pathological refusal to acknowledge the fact we’re made of subpar parts does tend to blind him,” said Ambulon.

“He’s not the only one,” said Getaway.

“Ha. That’s true enough,” said Ambulon.

He paused.

He squinted at him.

“Are we bonding?” He asked.

“Oh, Primus, I hope not,” said Getaway.

That would just be the real ticket, wouldn’t it? That he came to the Afterspark, got into a fight immediately, and then made friends with them? Skids would—well, not Skids anymore, but his Skids would have laughed in his face.

He’d have to send Jazz a basket of energon candies too. Which he would never live down. And was also impossible due to the whole, you know, being dead thing.

Was Skids dead yet? And if he was, which Skids was he?

Getaway didn’t think he wanted to know.

There wasn’t much more time to think on it. Ambulon was already up in his face, torch blazing. The digits of his free servo folded back into a couple of medical tools that didn’t make him flinch shut up.

He sat very, very still.

Ambulon set to work.

“Good enough,” said Ambulon after a while, shutting off the torch and getting to his pedes. “See you around.”

“That’s it? You break my plating, give me a free fix, and then you leave?” Getaway asked.

“Are you suggesting you didn’t deserve it?” Ambulon asked.

That gave Getaway pause.

The answer was obvious. He didn’t deserve it. But the way Ambulon said it, it sounded like a threat. Like if Getaway did actually state the obvious, they were going to get into another fight.

Considering the fact that Getaway didn’t actually feel like spending the rest of his time in the Afterspark in a never-ending fight, he waved off the question.

“The important part is the leaving,” said Getaway.

“Hmm. And here I thought we weren’t bonding,” said Ambulon.

“We aren’t,” said Getaway.

Ambulon eyed him. He still looked damnably amused.

“I’m leaving,” he said after a while. “And you’re not welcome to follow. But if we ever run into each other again, I’ll consider buying you a drink before I punch your face in again.”

Then, apparently satisfied with Getaway’s silence, he turned and walked away. Getaway didn’t bother trying to follow. He just sat there and watched him leave.

His spark felt oddly light.

“Wow. I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” said Getaway.

“What? The drink? Or the punch?” Ambulon asked.

“Either or. Both,” said Getaway.

Ambulon grinned at him, kind of crooked and with fangs, and—

Oh Primus, they might actually be friends.

**Author's Note:**

> So. I don't really know where this came from, but I had a lot of fun writing it. Hope you liked it =^w^=


End file.
